The Other Half

A New Chapter

    The room was full of purple smoke. Ella started coughing, but not nearly as hard as Mr. Ollivander was. This was the twelfth wand that he had given her to try. Mr. Ollivander cleared the air with a wave and soon the smoke disappeared. A sigh escaped from Ella as she handed back the wand.

"Does it normally take this long to pick one out?" She asked him before he disappeared to get more boxes.

His voice called from behind a few rows of shelves. "Sometimes, but that happens with certain witches and wizards." He returned with five more boxes in his arms and set them in front of her. "Your dear mother took a while to finally find hers. Went through 20 of them if I remember correctly. But she finally managed to match to a maple wood wand with dragon heartstring at the core." Ella's mother and Ulrich both left to get other school supplies. It was probably for the best seeing as Ella probably wouldn't find a wand anytime soon. She was getting anxious at the amount she was going through with each one causing inconsistent failed effects.
A bell rang signaling someone else was entering the shop. Out of the corner of her eye, Ella saw two figures approach the desk carefully. One was a rather pretty girl of Asian descent and the other had an unusual, asymmetrical pixie cut. Both girls had black hair, but the pixie cut looked rather brilliant on the taller girl. Mr. Ollivander strode back in with boxes many boxes in his hands.
He saw the two new girls and smiled. "Welcome ladies. I am the wandmaker, Mr. Ollivander."

"I'm Cho Chang," The asian girl smiled.

"I'm Nellie McNabb," said the other, looking around the shop in interest.

He nodded. "Let me go back and bring out some more wands for you two. Miss Mansfield, you can keep trying out the ones on the counter that I've brought."

Ella looked at the stack in front of her and opened the top box. The reddish brown wood was cold in her fingers as she examined it closely. She gave a wave and saw that nothing happened. She looked at her wand curiously before realizing that the wand actually did perform something- it caused a rotten odor to appear. Both of the girls at the other end of the counter made faces and covered their noses.

"Not that one," Nellie laughed. "Wow... that's awful."

"Agreed." Ella covered her own nose and placed the wand back into the box.

"Oh my!" Mr. Ollivander was hurried back with more wands, his nose crinkling. "That's rather fowl.. Definitely not for you, Miss Mansfield." He waved his wand again and the scent vanished. "Why don't you try the third box down? That one might be suited for you my dear. I have a good feeling." He set a couple of boxes in front of Nellie and Cho.

Cho looked over at Ella and gave her an encouraging smile. "You can't get much worse than that last wand. You'll find the right one." Cho had picked out one with dark stained wood and gave it a wave. She caused a few flyers on the window to soar around.

Ella frowned a little. Her magic seemed to be less impressive and was only capable of minor disasters. She went back to opening the box that Mr. Ollivander had suggested. Nellie had looked through a few of the boxes by Cho, not interested in any she saw. Turning away, she approached Ella's pile and looked at the stack and picked the bottom box. Mr. Ollivander didn't seem to mind this and let the three girls experiment. Waving her rather swishy wand, Ella grinned as she saw red and violet sparks shoot from the tip of her wand.
Nellie watched in awe as the sparks danced in front of them. She was grasping onto a lighter colored wand with swirled ridges on the handle and once she saw the sparks Ella made, she waved hers and produced orange and teal streaks right away. Mr. Ollivander beamed at them. "Well there we have it. Those are both good matches." He examined Ella's first. "Yew wood, very interesting... Yew wood with a unicorn hair for the core. 11 ¾ in length. This is an interesting wand Miss Mansfield. I will be most interested to see where you find yourself in the future. I think your powers are triggered more by your emotions than the average witch. But, that's not a bad thing at all. This wand will definitely be useful to you as you start the next chapter of your life and figure things out. Yes indeed.." He handed her back the wand. Ella's cheeks blushed a little at the mention of her emotional use of magic. He didn't seem to notice and turned to examine Nellie's wand. "I think this has a natural calling to you. Poplar, with a dragon heartstring core. 13 inches long. This wand will suit you well Miss McNabb. You must have a surprisingly stern personality and clear morals to possess this wand." He handed it back to her. A crash signaled that Cho had tried a new one that was not a good fit. "Oh dear.. Let me get you more to try out." He headed to the back again, leaving the three girls.